Baryshnikov Keeps The Kgb On Its Toes

If you're the sort of person who generally arrives late for movies, don't make that mistake with White Nights. The first few minutes of this approximately two-and-a-half-hour picture are the best.

White Nights opens with Mikhail Baryshnikov and a ballerina performing Le Jeune Homme et la Mort. Because the ballet is set in realistic surroundings, you may not realize at first that the dancers are on stage, performing for an audience within the movie. Baryshnikov's expressive, dynamic movements and the scene's hypnotic stylization suggest an alternate reality. Awed, you wonder: Can this level of excitement possibly be sustained for the entire film?

Not really. The sequence ends, the spell is broken and you're dropped into a run-of-the-mill thriller. Still, some of the magic lingers. The subsequent dance scenes aren't always as strong as that first one, but they shine anyway. Directed by Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman), the film is set mainly behind the Iron Curtain and concerns a Russian ballet star. Kolya Rodchenko (Baryshnikov), who defected to the West eight years earlier, takes a plane headed for Japan that crash-lands at a military base in Siberia. When the Soviets figure out that they've got the great dancer, they determine to make the most of the situation by coercing Kolya into performing once again on their stages.

Gregory Hines co-stars as a black tap dancer named Raymond Greenwood who defected to the Soviet Union in response to American racism, and who is assigned to keep an eye on Kolya. Isabella Rossellini plays Raymond's wife.

Rated PG-13, White Nights is on view at the Interstate Mall 6 and the University 8 and Fashion Square Cinemas.